Bronco Bass upgrades

[reep]

I recently bought a used Squier Bronco Bass to be a backup for my regular instrument, the Jay Turser beatle bass clone. I figured it would be a good candidate for some upgrades and I already had a complete set of American Fender JazzBass hardware left over from another project. The original pickup (they use a Strat guitar pickup) sounded dreadful, so I dropped in a JazzBass pickup, enlarging the original single-coil size hole. This puts it midway between the bridge and the fretboard. It's maybe 25% better, but frankly, it's disappointing...just no balls. I know it's a solid body and won't sound like my hollowbody violin bass, and granted, it's a 30 inch scale, but still.... I used to have an old Gibson EB3 with two Precision vintage pickups and it made bottom end for days. What's wrong here? Is the pickup placement too far from the neck, or have I put in another unsuitable pickup? I've never used a Fender Jazz pickup before, so I'm not sure what it should sound like. All I know is, this bass now sounds like a deep voiced guitar. Anybody got any ideas?

[iamchipsmith]

I plan on doing the same thing. I've heard a lot of people who put in a different guitar pickup and get good results. Something with good bass responce and is a rail style pickup so the pole pieces wont have to match up with the strings. Some one else told me that if you wired the pickup directly to the output it made it better. I dont have any expirience with this personally but let me know how it goes.

[BellBottomBlues]

I used to use a Fender Mustang Bass which is essentially an older version of a Bronco.

Seamour Duncan has a single coil bass pickup that's designed to fit in the older telecaster or (pre-split single coil) precision basses.

The hole you routed may have been waaay too large to accommadate anything remotely like the original single coil. The jazz pickup isn't aligned exactly right for the strings in the bronco bass.

I suggest getting a new pickguard, routing a hole, a dropping in a replace single coil.

Plus J-Bass pickups are made to sound extra punchy and have an increased mid-range and don't have as much on the bass side.

[reep]

I originally hoped to use the JazzBass pickup, plus the Precision split pickup next to the neck. Don't know quite how to deal with the fact that the top edge of the pickguard is going to be real close to the neck pickup cutout. Is there a pickguard made for a different Fender bass that's got more surface area on the top edge? I'm thinking Jazz or Precision as I don't care much for that thing they use on the Telecaster bass with the big extrusion on the upper horn of the body.

[Pilgrim]

Install Labella Deep Talkin' Bass strings - flatwounds. They will give much more bottom than the factory rounds. And as time passes after you install them, they will sound even better.

[reep]

Thanks to all of you for your input. I've heard the suggestion about the humbucking rail pickups before...as a matter of fact, I'm building a 25 inch scale Telecaster bass conversion and one of the three pickups I'm using is an Artec Hot Rail because it overcomes the very narrow string spacing problem. I decided against it for the Bronco because I want something bassier and less guitar-like (the problem I had with the original Bronco/Strat unit). I still think I want a pickup nestled right next to the neck, so want to solve the pickguard issue. The old Fender Mustang Bass pickguards look like they'd work, mounting space-wise. Anybody know if this pickguard will drop onto a Bronco body? And, yes, some flatwound strings are in the works. Every review I read on Harmony Central about the Bronco (and the Turser violin bass, my other instrument) said the same thing...that the sound change remarkably for the better with flatwounds.